What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by dragonwriter on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @05:03PM (#18720186)

> In the United States, approximately 2/3 of healthcare costs are already borne by the government.

Less than half; US healthcare spending was around 8.5% GDP public, 8.8% GDP private in 2016.

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...

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Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by rootusrootus on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @05:28PM (#18720444)

I've heard the 2/3 number (sometimes a little less, most recently slightly over, 68%) from a few reputable sources recently. At the same time, I generally consider Kaiser pretty reliable. I think the discrepancy comes from what is being included in the total -- all costs, direct payments only, tax subsidies, etc. At least from what research I've done.

Even if we take the value to be 50%, my point stands -- the gov't is already heavily involved in funding healthcare in this country. Implementing single payer at this point would simplify quite a lot of bureaucracy.

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Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by conanbatt on Thursday December 20, 2018 @02:38AM (#18723124)

You should look into what Kaiser does to its providers. Its pretty grim.

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Re:What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills by dragonwriter on Thursday December 20, 2018 @03:43AM (#18723375)

Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, not the Kaiser Permanente managed care consortium. Same founder, but very different organizations.

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